Foxconn is back in the motherboard market, and it’s good timing what with Intel’s Sandy Bridge launch, so here’s its high-end board, the originally-named P67A-S.

To some in the know, Foxconn is the world’s largest electronic manufacturer, but to the majority of the population it’s one of the world’s biggest manufacturers they’ve never heard of.

It’s responsible for myriad OEM products, such the ViewSonic ViewPad 7 and more impressively the iPhone and all its brethren.

It made a real impact with its return to the consumer sector though with its range of X58 based boards; the FlamingBlade, Bloodrage and Renaissance series. Now it’s turned its attention to Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge technology and has released a range of boards based around the H67 chipset along with this solitary P67 board.

After reading the feature list of the Foxconn P67A-S, you’d be forgiven for thinking, “Is that it?”

Compared to a lot of its rivals using the P67 chipset, it does appear to be a bit light in the add-on features department.

This is not necessarily a bad thing since most people, if they’re honest, hardly use many of the extras you find crammed today’s motherboards anyway.

And if the lack of frills keeps the price down, so much the better.

The Foxconn P67A-S uses a similar Aptio UEFI BIOS as the ECS P76H2-A Black Extreme and once again we had the same problem of a slightly underclocked CPU both at standard and overclocked speeds, which again affected the rendering benchmarks slightly.

Apart from that, the board gave us no real problems when benchmarking.

3D Rendering performance

Cinebench R11.5 – Index: higher is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 6.71
Foxconn P67A-S: 6.69
ECS P67H2-A: 6.53
Overclocked: 7.51

Cinebench R10 – Seconds: quicker is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 37
Foxconn P67A-S: 39
ECS P67H2-A: 39
Overclocked: 33

Video encoding performance

x264v2 – FPS: higher is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 35.15
Foxconn P67A-S: 32.71
ECS P67H2-A: 33.21
Overclocked: 39.57

x264v3 – FPS: higher is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 35.70
Foxconn P67A-S: 36.76
ECS P67H2-A: 32.71
Overclocked: 39.57

1080p gaming performance

Just Cause 2 – FPS: higher is better
Asus P8P67M-Pro: 46.18
Foxconn P67A-S: 45.58
ECS P67H2-A: 44.58

Foxconn’s P67A-S is a no-nonsense ATX board that doesn’t offer much in the way of frills and extras. In fact there is so much free PCB real estate you can hear the tumbleweed blowing through it.

But it does mean all the components have plenty of room around them. The only exception to this is the placing of the passive heatsink over the MOSFETS, which may cause problems with overly large third party coolers because it’s pretty close to the CPU socket.

The P67 chipset is also passively cooled, by a small standalone aluminium heatsink.

One surprise is that the board has an IDE port, and while many people will scoff at the idea of it, a great many more will find it a particularly helpful inclusion because there are a lot of people who have yet to make the switch to a SATA-based optical drive.

And some of us still have the odd PATA hard disk drive hanging around, too.

On one side of the board is the LED display, which shows the various POST codes while the board boots up and is a useful indicator to show what the problem if the boot process gets stuck.

Or rather, it would be if Foxconn listed the codes in the manual – they certainly weren’t there in the one that came with our board.

But to be fair on Foxconn, it’s certainly not the only guilty party over this omission in paperwork.

If you’re used to a box filled with cables and the like, then the bundle with the P67A-S will come as something of a shock, since you only get two SATA cables, an I/O backplate, a manual and a driver CD.

As we said, this is budget, no-frills Sandy Bridge-ing. A bit like the mobo equivalent of Easy Jet…

That said, it does come with the key features you’d expect from a P67 board; the latest I/O in USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps trim, some funky LEDs and a post code display. It also outperforms the top-end ECS board by some way across the board.

There’s some overclocking fun to be had here, but it’s not quite hitting the highs we’d hope.

We liked

It makes a pleasant change to see a board that is not crammed full of mostly unnecessary bits and bobs, many of which are never used by the man in the street.

The Foxconn P67A-S covers all the basics and does them well, and can form the basis of a pretty powerful PC on a reasonable budget.

We disliked

As with the ECS P76H2-A Black Extreme, the Aptio UEFI BIOS in the P67A-S was reluctant to perform at its peak. There’s also a feeling that aside from saving on the unnecessary fluff in the box, Foxconn has been a bit tight not putting in a few more drive cables.

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Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors are stupidly, impossibly, hilariously quick. By some metrics, they’re the most impressive new CPUs in memory. However, one of the downsides is the requirement for a new motherboard. Still, if you’re going to make the migration to a new Sandy Bridge system, why not consider a small-form-factor board, such as the Foxconn H67S?

As the name suggests, the Foxconn H67S is based on the new H67 chipset and therefore supports the heavily revised integrated graphics core that appears in each and every Sandy Bridge CPU.

The new core is available with either six or 12 execution units, respectively known as the Intel HD Graphics 2000 and 3000 models. It’s by far the best integrated graphics chip we’ve ever seen in terms of 3D performance, and also offers an impressive 2D feature set including HDMI 1.4 video out and support for Blu-ray stereoscopic 3D.

Of course, this tiny mini-ITX motherboard also works with discrete graphics through a 16-lane PCI Express port. And don’t forget, all Sandy Bridge processors come with the intriguing Quick Sync Video transcode engine that promises to make mincemeat of those tedious video conversion jobs. The potential for massive power in a puny package is utterly compelling.

It’s early days for Sandy Bridge motherboard testing, and it will take time to generate a reference point for comparative performance. That said, we do happen to have Asus’ Maximus IV Extreme on hand to provide some early context.

The Maximus is an enthusiast-class board based on the P67 discrete chipset, and therefore probably represents the fastest possible platform for Intel’s new Sandy Bridge CPUs, including the astonishing Core i7-2600K. As our benchmarks show, the H67S isn’t quite running on all cylinders. The main problem is sub-optimal support for Intel’s Turbo Boost feature.

Professional rendering, Cinebench R10

Time – faster is better

Foxconn H67S: 38 seconds
Asus Maximus IV Extreme: 35 seconds
Gigabyte P55A-UD6**: 46 seconds

Video encoding, x264 HD

Frames per second – higher is better

Foxconn H67S: 32fps
Asus Maximus IV Extreme: 35fps
Gigabyte P55A-UD6**: 28fps

Gaming, World in Conflict

Frames per second – higher is better

Foxconn H67S: 90fps
Asus Maximus IV Extreme: 96fps
Gigabyte P55A-UD6**: 78fps

Memory bandwidth, SiSoft Sandra

Gigabyte per seconds – higher is better

Foxconn H67S: 14.1GB/s
Asus Maximus IV Extreme: 18.7GB/s
Gigabyte P55A-UD6**: 17.3GB/s

** P55 chipset and Intel Core i7-870

Any mini-ITX motherboard comes with compromises. After all, with board dimensions of just 170mm by 170mm, it’s simply not possible to squeeze in a full feature set. In terms of building a high performance PC, however, there’s no denying the health of the Foxconn H67S’s chops.

The LGA1155 socket and H67 chipset allow for Sandy Bridge processors up to and including the Core i7-2600K. That’s a quad-core chip with a top Turbo frequency of 3.8GHz and performance to flatten anything this side of a £750 Intel six-core chip. Make no mistake, this board promises true enthusiast-class performance.

The same applies to 3D throughput. A full 16-lane PCI Express port makes this minuscule motherboard compatible with the most powerful pixel pumpers, including Nvidia’s latest bad boy, the GeForce GTX 580.

OK, finding a mini-ITX case and power supply that can accommodate such a monster isn’t easy. But a few solutions do exist. Just imagine the possibilities.

Of course, this is an H67-based board, and that means you also have the option of a more power-efficient platform using the integrated Intel HD Graphics core inside every Sandy Bridge-class processor.

As we discovered in our review of the Core i7-2600K, the HD Graphics 3000 core with 12 execution units is the fastest integrated chip ever. For the first time, playing relatively modern games such as Call of Duty 4 on an integrated GPU is genuinely feasible.

Just as important for a low-power system that might well serve as a home cinema system, the 2D video feature set is top notch, with hardware acceleration for all the key codecs, as well as Flash video. What’s more, the HDMI 1.4 port forms part of a box-fresh feature set that includes support for Blu-ray 3D movies.

Thanks to the SATA 6Gbps interface that comes as standard with every H67 chipset, the Foxconn H67S also offers the quickest currently available storage interface. If all that sounds like a recipe for a flawless victory, the lack of USB 3.0 ports and a pretty threadbare EFI interface (that’s the new firmware replacement for BIOS) are reminders that you’re not quite getting the full desktop experience.

The Foxconn H76S delivers a surprisingly full feature set for such a small board. But does it also pack a similarly hefty punch in terms of performance? That all depends on your reference point. With an Intel Core i7-2600K processor on board, this thing will absolutely hose anything based on Intel’s outgoing LGA1156 socket. It beats the likes of a high end, full-ATX PC powered by the old Core i7-870 chip with an extremely large stick.

To take just one example, you’ll get 90 frames per second in the historically CPU-crushing RTS game World in Conflict with the H76S and i7-2600K combo with a decent graphics card. The Core i7-870 manages just 78 frames per second.

It’s a similar scenario in other benchmarks, including video encoding. Few existing PCs can match the performance this motherboard is a capable of courtesy of Intel’s awesome new Sandy Bridge chips.

However, switch your frame of reference to a full sized ATX board running the same 2600K processor and the picture isn’t quite so rosy. The P67-based Asus Maximus IV Extreme is measurably quicker across the board. The gap isn’t huge, but given the highly integrated nature of the Sandy Bridge architecture – almost everything important housed in the CPU die itself – it is a little surprising.

The explanation is actually quite simple. The Foxconn H67S is not making full use of the Turbo Boost feature. At first we thought it was merely faulty default Turbo settings in the EFI menu.

However, even with the correct Turbo ratios manually dialled in, the board refuses to clock the i7-2600K higher than 3.5GHz. It should Turbo up to 3.8GHz. Adding to the impression of a board not quite ready for retail is memory stubbornly refusing to run faster than 1,066MHz.

These problems inevitably have a knock-on effect regarding overclocking. Foxconn has populated the EFI menu with few overclocking features. There are no voltage or memory options, for instance, and no global multiplier setting.

Only the per-core Turbo ratios are adjustable. In theory, anyway. In practice, 3.5GHz is as good as it gets. In truth, we’re not too worried about overclocking headroom with this sort of board. But we would like to see the CPU delivering nearer its full potential at stock settings.

We liked

With CPUs edging ever closer to system-on-a-chip status, it makes sense for motherboards to get smaller and smaller. The Foxconn H67S delivers fully on this concept with puny mini-ITX proportions combined with a very solid overall feature and performance that thoroughly spanks previous-generation platforms.

We disliked

We can forgive the H67S for lacking huge overclocking headroom. It’s not awfully relevant to small form factor computing. However, this board’s current inability to fully leverage Intel’s Turbo Boost is disappointing. A firmware upgrade is surely on the cards. An upgrade to USB 3.0 would be nice, too.

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Whether it’s because of Intel’s mighty six-core Core i7-980X processor or USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gbps technology or a combination of all or any of the three, for what ever reason, Intel’s high-end X58 chipset is having a real surge at the moment.

In fact there seem to be more motherboards in the market using the chipset and the accompanying LGA1366 socket than there were when it was first announced a couple of years ago. But adding the latest technologies to an already fairly costly chip often increases the board cost to eye-watering levels.

What if you don’t want all the latest bells and whistles and just want a stable X58 platform with a reasonable price tag? Foxconn’s FlamingBlade GTI might be the answer you’re looking for.

Compared to some X58 boards in the market, the FlamingBlade GTI may appear to be a bit basic, with just two PCI-E graphics slots, three memory slots and no RAID support, but sometimes basic isn’t a bad thing, especially for motherboards.

After all, why pay the Earth for a board that’s crammed full of features you’re never going to use?

To keep the cost of the FlamingBlade GTI down to a reasonable level, Foxconn has gone back basics, so instead of the R (RAID) version of the ICH10 Southbridge that’s normally associated with the X58, the FlamingBlade makes do with the standard non-RAID version.

Similarly, instead of the usual six DIMM slots – the X58 supports triple channel memory – there are only three, supporting up to 12GB of DDR3 1066/1333/1600/1800/ 2000MHz, the last three speeds through overclocking.

You won’t find any USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gbps ports on the FlamingBlade GTI, but there are six SATA 3Gbps ports and the board supports up to 12 USB 2.0 ports via eight ports on the rear I/O panel with two headers on the board supporting the other four.

There’s also a (rarely seen these days) ATA port, edge mounted at ninety degrees sitting just under the SATA ports.

Two PCI-E graphics slots are provided, but these only provide support for CrossFire setups only – no SLI support here. The two slots are well spaced to allow for cards with large cooling solutions to be fitted.

To help keep costs down, the board has a six-phase power design using standard components in the power circuitry; there are no military-class components on this board. The MOSFETS, along with the North and Southbridges, are passively cooled.

Sitting under the ATA port is a pair of LED readouts for the BIOS debugs, but unless you already know what the codes mean, you’re going to have to look them up since they don’t feature in the manual, which is a bit of a pain.

The rear I/O panel contains a PS/2 port, six audio ports for the integrated eight channel audio, single LAN and S/PDIF ports and eight USB2.0 ports.

CPU Rendering performance

Cinebench R10: Seconds – quicker is better
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 53
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 54

Cinebench R11 Index
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 4.82
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 4.77

Video encoding

X264 v3 (frames per second)

Pass1 (avr 4 runs)
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 68.40
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 66.252

Pass2 (avr 4 runs)
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 26.37
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 25.91

X264 v2 (fps)

Pass1 (avr 4 runs)
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 75.180
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 72.495

Pass2 (avr 4 runs)
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 27.000
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 26.507

Graphics (HD5830 single and Crossfire)

Far Cry 2 (small ranch map, 4xFSAA, Ultra settings, avr fps)

Single card:
1680 x 1050: 64.99
1920 x 1200: 41.99

CrossFire:
1680 x 1050: 89.41
1920 x 1200: 76.22

DiRT2 (4xFSAA, Ultra settings)

Single card:
1680 x 1050: 64.30
1920 x 1200: 56.58

CrossFire:
1680 x 1050: 113.93
1920 x 1200: 99.83

Just Cause 2 (Dark Tower benchmark, 4xFSAA, 8xAscF)

Single card:
1680 x 1050: 46.74
1920 x 1200: 40.12

Crossfire:
1680 x 1050: 59.30
1920 x 1200: 50.68

Overclocking – Intel 920 overclocked to 3.6GHz

CPU Rendering performance

Cinebench R10: Seconds – quicker is better
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 42
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 42

Cinebench R11 Index
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 6.07
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 6.08

Video Encoding

X264 v3 (fps)

Pass1 (avr 4 runs)
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 85.47
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 84.17

Pass2 (avr 4 runs)
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 33.05
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 32.89

X264 v2 (fps)

Pass1 (avr 4 runs)
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 93.872
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 92.790

Pass2 (avr 4 runs)
Foxconn FlamingBlade GTI: 31.027
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R: 30.160

Lab report

The FlamingBlade GTI’s BIOS made it very easy to overclock, with as many tweaks and adjustments to various bits of motherboard hardware as you’d find on a board costing twice as much.

The fact that we could only get the Intel 920 we used to run at 3.6GHz is more the fickle nature of that particular chip rather than a limitation of the board.

The FlamingBlade GTI is a good-looking board built on a black PCB with black and red used for the major ports and slots. It’s also a well laid-out board, and if you’re used to the crammed full of features high-end X58 boards, the amount of space around the components might come as a bit of a shock.

However, you may still run into a problem with the SATA ports. All the ports are vertically mounted on the PCB, and the positioning of the last pair may prove a little troublesome if you intend to use an extra-long graphics card in the top PCI-E slot and a lot of disk drives, because they sit a fraction above the top graphics slot.

The provision of only three memory slots isn’t a problem, the cost of filling these up with a triple kit of memory isn’t going to break the bank these days, and the 12GB maximum memory support is going to be enough for the vast majority of users anyway.

Let’s face it, if you need six slots and 24GB of memory, you’re probably talking about putting together a workstation, and this board lacks more than just memory support for that particular role in life.

While its understandable from a cost point of view, maybe the use of the standard ICH10 Southbridge rather than the R (RAID) supporting version is a cost cut to far, these days running a RAID setup is far more common a practice than in the past and it seems a strange idea when the board is equipped with so many SATA ports.

Despite the Foxconn aiming the FlamingBlade GTI at the lower end of the X58 market, it comes with fairly comprehensive BIOS with all the overclocking goodies sitting in the Quantum BIOS page.

These include a wide range of voltage adjustments for the CPU, memory and both bridges. There’s even a section to store up to eight overclocked settings.

Performance wise the FlamingBlade GTI is pretty impressive, more than holding its own against the more feature rich boards like the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R for example. But where you may run into its limitations is when it comes to really pushing the overclocking side of things where its cost saving six-phase power design and standard components in the power circuitry become more of a hindrance than a help.

For example, we pushed the Northbridge voltage up, not by very much, and the Northbridge itself became too hot to touch. If you really want to push the board, some extra cooling is going to be essential.

We liked

Foxconn’s FlamingBlade GTI is a very good example of a no-nonsense X58 board, well laid out with good performance and comes with a detailed BIOS, which is a nice surprise given its highly competitive price tag.

We disliked

The positioning of the SATA ports could cause a problem if you’re using a long graphics card, it’s a shame that they’re not edge mounted, which would get them out of the way. Also the choice of the standard, non-RAID version of the Southbridge may be a cost saving too far.

Verdict

If the budget won’t stretch very far but you want an X58 board and don’t need all the bells and whistles or don’t care about future proofing, then you need to add Foxconn’s FlamingBlade GTI to the shopping list.

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